By Cathy Petocz. The Street Theatre. 18 Oct 2014
It’s a rare feat to develop a storyline featuring ideas that are intensely abstract and surreal, and succeed in getting any sort meaningful investment from the audience. David Lynch comes to mind as a shining example of how to accomplish this, as does Stanley Kubrick and Andy and Lana Wachowski with their cult hit ‘The Matrix’.
In her attempts at creating a play in the ball park of this genre, it would certainly not be reasonable to compare up-and-coming writer Cathy Petocz’s first full length play ‘Where I End and You Begin’ with these entertainment industry heavyweights. However, I think it’s fair to say that Petocz has a ways to go in capturing the imagination of theatregoers.
Walking into the theatre I was somewhat intrigued at the approach to the sparse and ethereal set design that featured a furry white catwalk, with the audience sitting on both sides, as a centrepiece, but that also utilised the space around it. About 10 minutes into the production this intrigue gave way to irritation, cascaded into mental fatigue and then finally settled into utter disinterest.
The navel gazing storyline, from what I could cobble together, centred around two private detectives living in alternate universes; Polly (Kate Hosking), is a mercurial, femme fatale type assisting her client Timothy (Dylan van den Berg) to uncover the reasons behind his mysterious blackouts. Whatshisname (Raoul Craemer) is alternatively a frantic “deep space” private detective from the future, looking for someone in the cosmos. Thrown in the mix was Timothy’s new love interest Hazel (Ylaria Rogers) and the superfluous mystery man, Emmanuel (Kabu-Okai Davies). They all interconnect, but don’t ask me how exactly.
With the characters engaging in multiple disjointed and often unintelligible conversations at once (that also overlapped), it was incredibly difficult to get any real sense of what was unfolding. It took so much concentration just to keep up that it felt entirely futile to bother once you realised the story wasn’t really going anywhere, and hence would offer no real reward for your effort.
Sometimes to appreciate complex artistic expression it helps to get some insight into the concept behind it, but without this insider perspective to sustain my interest it all just seemed incredibly self-indulgent. Experimentation is the lifeblood of what keeps theatre fresh and alive, but experimentation for its own sake should be kept in rehearsal rooms and not performed on the unwitting public.
The issue with ‘Where I End and You Begin’ is that both the concept and the characters were sorely underdeveloped and seemed to have been created in a bubble with not a lot of consideration given to what the audience might glean from the end result. In this respect, the talent of the five performers felt somewhat wasted. As committed to the project as they clearly were, the lack of substance in the script’s content meant that it was very difficult to connect with their cold, one-dimensional characters and their seemingly pointless existences.
While I had high expectations for ‘Where I End and You Begin’, sadly it would be difficult to recommend it – even to a particular niche. I do have faith though that Petocz as a playwright will continue to evolve her craft and create some very interesting and unique theatre in the coming years. And with such an ambitious debut, you have to admire her courage and vision.
Deborah Hawke
When: 18 to 26 Oct
Where: The Street Theatre
Bookings: thestreet.org.au
